Who is The Gourmet?
The Gourmet is always ready for fun and radiates energy and enthusiasm. You don’t have any problem with living in the moment – you are the moment! Not backwards in coming forwards, you love to get their hands dirty and dive into tasks – you don’t need to weigh options up at any great length and you might find you can get a little frustrated with people that spend (‘waste’) a great deal of time listing pros and cons.
Gourmets are expert storytellers and you are highly adept at keeping your audience on the edge of their seats. The Gourmet feels truly alive when in the company of others – the drama and performance of life are fuel for your passionate personality. Always up to date on current affairs, the Gourmet is as comfortable discussing international politics as they are the latest exquisite food trend. Chores and routine can bore a Gourmet to death – who has time for such things?!? You’d much rather close their eyes and stick a pin in the map than spend 12 months debating where to go next for a holiday. To go somewhere twice, a destination would need to be very special, or perhaps revisited with some first-timers whom you could ‘wow’ with your insider knowledge.
The Gourmet’s house is fantastic – you certainly have a flair for style and you are an open and extremely hospitable person. Guests are made to feel at home and they are free to roam around and lounge in any room. You appreciate the finer things in life and want to share these with others because of your unguarded and sociable nature.
You love eating out, cooking and entertaining – in fact you derive a great sense of worth from social interactions. But you are fiercely loyal and you will keep a close circle of friends very protected and close to your heart.
Everyone wants an invitation to the Gourmet’s dinner party. Not only will your food be beyond delicious, but the atmosphere and conversation will be exquisite. No expense will be spared. Your passion for and knowledge of food and drink is encyclopaedic and you love searching out the best-quality ingredients and going off the beaten track to find the perfect deli or wine merchant. Shopkeepers know you well and they look forward to impressing you with their new produce and discussing its provenance at length.
Delicious food is a notable part of your identity. You watch food programmes, collect great cookbooks, follow fellow gourmets on Instagram and shop at specialist delis and fancy supermarkets (because food is just not something that can be skimped on). This doesn’t mean you avoid the discount supermarkets: you love exploring, just to nose out fascinating morsels of exotic luxury.
Classic Gourmet eating behaviours
Your love of eating, cooking and entertaining means food is always on your mind, your fridge is packed with delicious delights and your cupboards are heaving with enticing and exotic ingredients – meaning that calorific temptation is always at your fingertips.
• High calorie foods. One look at your food/mood diary is likely to indicate that you’re unconsciously consuming far too many calories while cooking, enjoying every delicious mouthful, and quaffing exquisite wine.
• No stop button. You are strident about turning down a food item you dislike, or a meal that is poorly seasoned or of inferior quality, and you don’t have any qualms about leaving food on your plate if it doesn’t meet your very high expectations. But when you are eating something fantastic, the ‘stop when you’re full’ rules no longer apply.
• Food is your passion, so dinner parties and big restaurant meals will be a regular fixture in your diary – and if you’ve managed to secure a table at the latest venue, or with the hottest chef, you’re going to want to tuck in to the seven-course tasting menu (with a different wine for each course) rather than a lightly dressed salad starter.
• You could be a feeder. With a strong reputation to uphold and an obligation to feed others inside and outside the home, much of your spare time will be occupied with preparing cakes for fundraisers, or nourishing meals for the children, making yours a very food-oriented existence.
• Restriction is off the menu. You hate the idea of ‘low’ anything, so everything in your kitchen and everything you pick up outside of it will be full fat and full sugar.
• You find choice hard. You tend to be indecisive when eating out in restaurants, because you can’t bear the prospect of being disappointed. This can leave you hankering after everyone else’s meals when the food arrives and ‘trying’ tasters from everyone else. Plus dessert.
Lucas hasn’t eaten all day — because tasting is definitely not eating. He is hosting his annual house party tonight which consists of a seven-course bonanza and although Lucas has help from a friend who runs an up-scale catering company, he insists on making one course completely himself and also sourcing all the ingredients. This takes months, although there’s never actually a plan — it always comes together at the last minute. Lucas savours the research (and tasting) almost as much as the dishes. It’s strange, he wonders, that such small individual plates have made him so big. ’And I am big,’ Lucas thinks. ’Becoming the jolly compere is not the look I was after … ’.
But Lucas, in his very essence, abhors diets. Just the word makes a shiver run down his spine. Why on earth would anyone eat limp, soggy mung bean patties when there’s such a tremendous variety of food available? He just can’t bring himself to do it, to count calories or decline a drink when offered. It would be so rude.
In the past, partners have found it hard to be ignored when sincere comments about long-term health have been peppered into conversation. But Lucas is not one ‘to be told’, well, anything really. His intuition has served him well so far so why should he change?
Food seems to now be entangled with his success and sense of achievement, and he’s not sure how or where he’d function without it. Just the thought of ‘dieting’ makes Lucas feel bereft.
Because your Gourmet identity is so wrapped up in your ability to entertain and regale, your Shrinkology approach is focused on how to disentangle your deeply entrenched sense of self from the many foodie settings that include indulgent eating and drinking. You will also find a selection of handy quick tips which should help distract you from between meal cravings, as well as great hacks to boost your willpower and see you on the path to success.
DAILY HACKS
How does this serve you?
Gourmets can find it hard to really see why they should change. This poses a bit of a problem as we know that doing it for your own reasons (intrinsic motivation) is a much better predictor of success for any goal than doing it for someone else (extrinsic motivation). Therefore, it’s beneficial for Gourmets to work on their inner motivation on a regular, daily basis to help them along their Shrinkology journey.
Whenever you feel that the urge to just do what you’ve always done (finish off the bottle of wine, order a starter and dessert), ask yourself this crucial question:
HOW DOES THIS SERVE ME AND MY HEALTH?
Because of course you can go for dinner and eat rich and heavy, luscious food. You can down a bottle of wine after work with a good friend. You can snaffle all the tasters in your favourite deli. But do these actions serve you and provide you with good health? The answer is probably no.
You are a passionate person. Although food has become a big part of your passion, it is by no means the only thing you gain delight from. To uncover interests that might have been overshadowed, get a large sheet of paper (or whiteboard if you have access to one) and some coloured pens and sketch out the answers to these questions. There is only one rule: answers must to be non-food related:
• What’s the most fulfilling thing you’ve done?
• What exactly made this so satisfying?
• What gives you lasting satisfaction?
• What have you done recently that you’d like to do more of?
• What are you most proud of?
• What truly makes you feel alive?
• What would you like your legacy to be?
Stand back and look at your scribbles — is there a pattern? You’ll notice clusters of life areas — usually in the following categories:
• family
• work, career and money
• living environment
• community
• religion and spirituality
• health and wellbeing
Now take a clean sheet of paper and connect your clusters in a mind map to clearly see where your true passions lie. This may seem obvious, but over time interests can get somewhat lost in the mix of life. Once you reconnect with your non-foodie passions you can invest time and energy on them again — something which, as a Gourmet, you are very good at!
To train yourself to become less reactive in food-related situations and gain more control around food, try this mindfulness exercise. It will make the most of your keen Gourmet senses.
• What can you smell? Notice the scents around you (ideally not food!) – perfume, a wood burner, or freshly cut grass. Try to identify the individual fragrances.
• What can you hear? Focus on road noises, the bustle of a busy office or something more subtle such as the whirr of your computer. Can you hear bird calls, rain drumming on a window or, a cat purring? These are all background noises that we often don’t notice on a day-to-day basis. Focus on things you haven’t listened to before.
• What can you feel? Notice your breathing – sense how it feels to you to inhale and exhale. Do your clothes feel stiff, soft or scratchy on your skin? What’s your temperature like – are you warm or a little cold?
• What can you see? Take note of colours around you, their brightness and tinge. Try and concentrate on each colour individually before moving to the next.
• Objects: scan the environment and find five separate objects to observe. Try to concentrate on each colour individually before moving to the next. Observe five separate objects in this way. It can be interesting to zoom in on the minutiae of an item that you use every day.
By the end of this exercise you will feel calm and relaxed. Remember not to reprimand yourself if your mind wanders – it’s simply a case of non-judgementally escorting your attention back to the mindful task.
Use your remote control
In cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT;) there is a concept called ‘frustration tolerance’, which is how much you can take before you fall back into old patterns. Because many different situations and triggers have the potential to cause a dieting slip-up, and it’s impossible to control every one of these, the trick is to increase your frustration tolerance.
When a food or drink craving hits, press the pause button: Now, while your body is in this freeze-frame, imagine yourself giving in to the craving. Be honest with yourself about how the scene normally plays out. Yes, there’s the brief gratification, but what else?
Next, breathe deeply for a few moments and fast-forward this scene to after you’ve done this (for instance, about an hour later).
Ask yourself now: How does it feel? Are you disappointed to have given in? The guilt, shame and self-recrimination that normally accompany eating behaviour can feel quite strong now. Try not to push these feelings away as they will help you ...
Now that you have seen the future, press ‘rewind’ on your remote control and bring yourself back to the present, but this time watch the scene unfold again where you don’t give in to the craving. Now you can understand that you’re not physically hungry and so you don’t need the food or drink – the craving is just a thought.
Ask yourself: How does this feel now? Strong, in control and the fabulous person you are? Yes!
Finally, with this increased confidence and empowerment, press play on your remote and make your choice on what you want to do. You have the ability to change the future.
Plan a nostalgia party
You can stick to your weight-loss plan and still throw a brilliant party. It just needs a bit of creativity! Take the emphasis off food and host a nostalgia party. Pick a decade, or even better a specific year, and research the music, movies, games and fads of that particular time. Nostalgia boosts mood and positive feelings about ourselves.89 Feelings of nostalgia also increase social connectedness, so you’ll be able to bond with others over shared memories, rather than wine.
Try these ideas for an 80s themed nostalgia party:
• Make your own Crystal Maze with Aztec, Medieval, Industrial and Futuristic Zones. You could stash golden tokens around the house and use the time gained for crystals won in the tasks as the final competition. As the host you will be leading your guests through the Maze’s timed games.
• Have a LEGO® competition. LEGO® is not just for kids! There are regular Adult Fans of LEGO® meetings known as AFOL Meetups. Here, people get together and either free build, or work to a theme. LEGO® therapy, originally created to help children with autism improve their social skills,90 is used incorporate settings to increase confidence and self-assurance (LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY®) and can also help to develop problem-solving skills. But the key is that it’s fun!
• Devise a Ghostbusters quiz based on all three films, followed by a marathon movie-watching session.
• Throw a Star Wars party – the possibilities are endless and not confined to the 80s. But just make sure your friends are fans.
To replace the stimulation you crave in food and drink, try exploring sensual scents with scented candles, essential oils, herbs, or find somewhere where you can make your own perfume. Blending your own bespoke fragrance enables the Gourmet to later retell the story of your ‘signature fragrance/cologne’ with as many embellishments as you please.
Quick fix
Boost your feel-good neurochemicals without food
Chocolate isn’t the only source of the pleasure chemicals dopamine and serotonin – studies show kissing, cuddling and sex can trigger extremely beneficial chemical cascades in the brain too. You can get a dopamine surge (calorie free!) from sex.91 So, if you are in a loving relationship, why not have more sex instead of chocolate? You get the added bonus of a surge in another neurotransmitter, oxytocin, which is known as the love hormone – this is the chemical which makes us feel warm and fuzzy inside, and connected to our partners.92 If you’re not in a relationship or don’t have a willing partner (!) there are other ways to get the benefits of feel-good neurochemicals:
• Kissing is a great way to increase oxytocin and reduce the stress hormone cortisol;
• Reading a steamy novel (try a Mills & Boon series or 50 Shades of Grey) can boost the brain’s pleasure centres;
• Aim to do more hand-holding and hugging;
• Oxytocin is released during masturbation (just so you know ...)93
(slow-build, longer-term hacks)
Shift your mind-reading ways
The thought of not using food and drink as a conduit for social interaction can feel outrageous and impossible to the Gourmet. You’re very likely to start worrying about what people will think of you. In your mind, they’ll be saying:
THAT’S SO BORING
YOU’RE NO FUN ANYMORE
YOU NEED TO CHILL
YOU’VE CHANGED
If this sounds like you, you could be engaging in a form of cognitive distortion known as ‘mind-reading’ in CBT and this could be holding you back. We all think we know what other people are thinking, particularly highly sociable Gourmets, but even the most intuitive people are not psychics. And people who say they are psychics are, well, let’s just say there isn’t a convincing stack of scientific evidence to support this claim. We can’t read other people’s minds, but we can, and often do, transfer our own thoughts and beliefs onto others. The good news is that if you know you’re mind-reading, or rather, guessing, you can stop yourself doing it.
Start by thinking about the criticisms people will inevitably lay at you if you duck out of the heavy eating/drinking social scene and make a list of counter-arguments that support your new, Shrinktastic way of thinking. If none spring to mind, unpick a boozy night out. List the downsides to a heavy night next to the benefits of cutting back a little on the drink (starting with getting rid of some empty calories!)
When contemplating a big night out, ask yourself if:
•You’ll repeat yourself
• You’ll do things you later regret
• You’ll don’t listen to a word anyone is saying
• You’ll get all emotional over nothing
• You’ll waste the next day with a hangover
• You’ll feel ill and unhappy afterwards
• You’ll cancel your exercise session
Now list the advantages of cutting back a little:
• You’ll really get to listen to friends and enjoy proper, deep conversation
• You ‘ll wake up the next day feeling refreshed
• You’ll have lots of energy
• You won’t have a hangover, so you’ll have more time for fun
• You’ll stick to your exercise plan
• You’ll feel clear-headed at work
By challenging your mind-reading thought patterns like this you will increase confidence in your ability to maintain your new, healthier Shrinkology choices.
Experiment, experiment, experiment
As well as challenging your beliefs about how people will react to the new you, it is also useful to collect real-life information with a bit of experimentation. Gourmets are fantastic at experimenting – it’s your thing – so approach this method with the same curiosity as you would any new experience. This is all about overcoming health-limiting beliefs that hold you back from being confident about your Shrinkology lifestyle – because what we think might happen in a given situation and what actually happens can be two very different things. Using the worksheet opposite, note down the following:
YOUR PREDICTION: Look into your crystal ball and think about a possible future situation where you are likely to feel a very strong urge to fall back into your old eating and drinking habits.
THE EXPERIMENTAL SITUATION: Think of how you can ‘test’ (and hopefully disprove) your prediction. Start with something relatively safe where you won’t feel too much pressure before moving on to tougher situations.
YOUR RESOURCES: After deciding on the experimental context, gather your resources (work out what you’re going to eat, drink and say) before testing the prediction.
THE OUTCOME: After the event, state what happened, including how you felt about it.
YOUR TAKE HOME MESSAGE: This is what you’ve learned from the experiment – what was the difference between your prediction and the outcome?
Over time and through this ‘scientific’ method of prediction testing, you will be able to see that even people we think we know inside and out are receptive to your health changes. But perhaps more importantly, you can start to see yourself differently and not be held back by your predictions. Use the table opposite as an example.
SHRINKOLOGY SCIENCE: CHANGE YOUR IDENTITY
It is clear that our early life experiences and social context can influence our food choices but could this work the other way round? If you label yourself a Gourmet (or, conversely, a healthy eater) does this make it more likely that you will eat like one? The way in which we identify ourselves has a powerful impact on our behaviour, including the way we eat. The more we identify with a particular role, the more likely we are to carry out actions consistent with that role.
If someone sees themself as an entertainer, they will take every opportunity to try to amuse others, just as a provider will work a tedious job to maintain income. Once defined as a Gourmet, you are very likely to continue through life exploring and sharing your love for food.
But our identities are open to change, even with regard to eating. A study by researchers Amanda Brouwer and Katie Mosack tried to change women’s eating habits by influencing their identities.94 A group of women were asked to create a list of identity statements around their health goals, e.g. if the goal was to eat more fruit, they became the ‘fruit eater’. By adding the ‘-er’ suffix to each goal, the participants become ‘doers’, just as above. In comparison with women given standard nutritional advice or not given any specific information, the ‘doers’ ate more healthy foods in the month following the initial intervention.
Gourmets can use this approach by noting down health goals and transforming these into self-identities – in other words, if you tell yourself you are a ‘small portion eater’ you are more likely to become one.
Role playing can help you practise challenging situations by providing you with a script as a positive alternative to old habits. Look at your food/mood diary and identify times and situations where the urge to overeat felt overpowering. Remember how this played out and write a script with a different ending. Then, ask a someone to perform this role play with you (or do it alone). It’s important to say the words and act out loud as you’ll remember it better this way. Even if you don’t respond verbatim in similar situations in the future, you’ll be better equipped to ‘fake it till you make it’. Watch other people to see how they interact with food choices and use these behaviour models in your future role playing.
Gourmet’s eat-less tips and tricks
Gourmets are highly resistant to the idea of curtailing excesses in behaviour. You are most likely only reading this book because you have been told to lose weight, or you are struggling to find suitable party clothes. Dieting is not a happy place for you and even if previous attempts at weight loss have enjoyed initial success, that sense of deprivation will often lead you back to your foodie passions.
You’ll probably skim through the Fundamentals chapter – you know all about how to eat properly, and right now you’ll be mustering your resistance to fight against any but the most delicious and palatable Shrinkology suggestions. So, if you really want Shrinkology to work, try going back to the Shrinkology Fundamentals and working through them one by one. Just because you really know your cabbages, it doesn’t mean the same sensible healthy eating rules don’t apply to you.
But here’s where your newfound Shrinkology insight is key – now you know the dynamics of your Gourmet traits, and you’ve seen them in action on the pages of your food/mood diary, you should be ready to take a little bit of well-meant expert advice.
• Who are you cooking for? Aim to make a clear distinction between cooking for yourself, with simple, healthy, small, vegetable-based portions, and cooking for others, with a bit more flair and flash. You will not fade away without cold Normandy butter on your crusty French bread every morning, and you can look forward to gourmandising when you cook for friends.
• Get out your social diary and start pruning. Fill your days with fun, rewarding activities, but put a self-imposed limit on socialisation that focuses on food. You won’t wither away without the positive feedback you get for your curry or crunchy potatoes. If you are going to reach and achieve a healthy weight, you won’t be able to do it on more than one food-based entertainment per week.
• Embrace ‘nouvelle cuisine’. Shrink some of your delicious creations down to bite-sized portions. Exquisite food, particularly when cooked by a Gourmet, can be highly calorific, but life without it is not worth living, so miniaturise instead.
• Check your food diary. Are you eating too much of the food you love? You know yourself best. Where can you cut back? Be tough on your self-imposed standards. What highly calorific delight can you more happily live without? Cheese? Chocolate? Butter? Processed meat has had a consistently bad press (the nitrates used as preservative could, if you consume too much, increase your risk of certain cancers). What could you manage without in the long term?
• Cut out a course. Would your dinner party be any less enjoyable if you omitted dessert and offered a cheese selection instead (and perhaps tiny petits fours with coffee)? Serve your starter as canapés (thereby blending nibbles with starter and halving the calorific intake). Serve rich desserts in shot glasses or egg cups.
• Take a look at your values. Do your children really need to be served a gourmet meal every night? Would they love you less if you placed a steaming bowl of pesto pasta in front of them?
• Be snack savvy. Many Gourmets worry about being caught short and hungry, and without access to sustenance between meals. You’ll get ‘hangry’, lack focus, be unable to work or function. This conditioning is partly a product of upbringing (was there always a snack in your school bag, just in case?) and partly the mighty force of the ‘Big Food’ snacking machine. The truth is, we don’t have to snack. Our ancestors rarely snacked. If you eat proper sustaining meals according to Shrinkology rules you will have enough fuel to keep your body and brain ticking along nicely until the next meal.
• Salads and soups are your new friends. Get creative. Flex your gourmet muscle, but ensure one meal each day is a simple salad or a simple homemade soup (with no cream and bulk it up with pulses rather than bread and butter).
• Skip breakfast. It’s really not that hard – particularly if you’ve eaten a big meal the night before. Studies show extending the nightly fast can actually be very good for your health, and that’s one very easy way to cut your calorific intake.
• Invest in fab new kitchen gadgets. For instance, a spiralizer could bring you hours of fun as you create lower-carbohydrate (and lower-calorie) courgetti swirls and butternut squash spaghetti, channelling all your gourmet creativity into lower carbohydrate sources of vegetable nutrition. What about a ‘vegidrill’ which cores fruit and veg in seconds to create fab stuffed peppers, courgette or onions? Or a microwave pressure cooker to rustle up delicious soups and stews super-fast?
Social media can be pretty damaging for some Shrinkology types, but as a Gourmet you can, with a bit of judicious selectivity, make some aspects work in your healthy eating favour.
Look out for the latest generation of smartphone apps which allow you to log your daily meals, post photos of your food, and leave comments on other dieters’ healthy food posts – it might encourage your tastes away from the most indulgent foodstuffs.95 Some very clever new apps may even soon use food recognition technology, which determines nutritional information based on photos you upload.
Studies show that for some people, posting your meals on Instagram can be an effective route to weight loss.96 We think this is a great Gourmet hack. The researchers found that documenting and sharing pictures of your meals using the hashtags #fooddiary or #foodjournal engenders support from other Instagram users and could help you make better food choices. For Gourmets, the Instagram feed works a bit like a social pressure food diary, helping you stay ‘honest’ and more effectively maintain your healthy habits and lost weight.
The Gourmet’s diet digest
For you, food must never be thought of as a punishment, so for any diet plan to work, it needs to be able to provide you with joy – ideally more joy than you currently get from the food you love. That’s a tough call.
You’re certainly unlikely to find long-term success with synthetic meal replacements or low-fat, artificially sweetened diet foods and, for many Gourmets, super-restrictive meal regimes like Weight Watchers or Slimming World aren’t sustainable long term. Although you know your ‘problem’ is the fact that you eat too much rich food, any diet that denies you the chance to cook, feed others and impress, is simply not going to work once you get bored and hit that stubborn weight-loss plateau.
Some Gourmets might find that Atkins-style carb-restricting diets work – for a while. A true Gourmet will be able to push through and enjoy quite a bit of weight-loss success by cutting bread, rice and potatoes out of your diet in return for the hedonistic delight of unlimited fatty steaks, fried breakfasts and thick double cream. But the temptation of triple-cooked fries, fondant potatoes, French bread or a warm croissant with your chocolat chaud can soon feel like too much, and extreme low-carb diets are by definition very difficult to modify: you’re either doing them or you’re not.
All too often the Gourmet will find that coming out of a low-carb regime introduces them to a whole new world of calorific pain, with a stubborn penchant for deliciously fatty foods plus the carbs they missed so much on top.
Intermittent fasting might offer a workable long-term solution for you. Some Gourmets can find it much easier to adopt an ‘all-or-nothing’ mentality whereby they slap themselves with a self-imposed total food ban from after Sunday lunch to, say, Tuesday. Experiment with the length of fast that works best for you. 24–48 hours should be enough compensatory calorie deficit to allow you to eat with impunity – and even enjoy a few drinks – at the weekends. The science shows fasting is also very good for you.97 Many Gourmets find hungry Mondays (and possibly even Tuesdays, too) are a small price to pay for full food fun at the weekend.
Dr Michael Mosley’s 5:2 diet (which allows 800 calories on two ‘fast’ days and healthy Mediterranean-style eating for the rest of the week) is an option many Gourmets might find worth trying. Although it can be tough to restrict your calorie intake on two days a week, there are plenty of happy advocates (Dr Mosley included) who use it to get to their target weight, then stay there using 6:1 – sticking to under 800 calories one day a week and eating healthily the rest of the time.
Another fasting diet that might work for you is occasionally eating just one meal a day, as advocated by Dr Xand van Tulleken in his book How to Eat Well. He devised a plan which allocates your entire daily calorie allowance to the evening meal. If you keep busy all day and stoke yourself with coffee and tea, it is not the impossible task it might seem. Some Gourmets might find it’s a sacrifice worth making for the joy of total unrestrained deliciousness.
If going hungry is too tough, you could try easing yourself in gently with 16:8. This refers to hours rather than days and it is very, very simple. You just have to extend your overnight ‘fasting’ window and cut your food consumption back to two meals per day. Anecdotally, many people find skipping breakfast is easiest – and research indicates extending your nightly fast can actually be very good for many aspects of your health – so you start the eating part of your day at lunchtime, then enjoy a full sociable dinner. Two meals rather than three.
This will appeal to many Gourmets because they can save their calorie allowance and have a spectacular and elaborate meal with no feelings of deprivation. It’s one less meal to worry about and it gets all your calorie restriction out of the way in the morning. It’s also a pretty flexible plan. You can try it for five or even six days of the week for active weight loss, or just two days a week to maintain a healthy weight. It can be easily incorporated into holidays and festive periods when everyone tends to eat more than normal.
Unlike 5:2, which refers to days of the week, 16:8 is all about eating within an 8-hour window. So, if you finish your evening meal at 8pm you eat nothing else until noon the next day. Alternatively, enjoy a slap-up (healthy) breakfast at 8am, and a main meal (lunch or dinner) before 4pm as long as you preserve that 16-hour overnight ‘fasting’ window.
Studies show continually grazing throughout the day keeps blood sugar levels topped up and insulin constantly storing it away in our fat reserves, so preventing our bodies from using stored fat for fuel. But the theory is, if you give yourself a 16-hour fasting window (during most of which you are asleep) the body will be forced to tap into your fat reserves to keep things ticking over.
Research on fasting seems to show that eating less often could actually boost your metabolic rate and make you even more focused than if you’d eaten a big breakfast.
Gourmet tips to cut back on the booze
Here’s the classic Gourmet drinking scenario (to paraphrase W.C. Fields): ’I cook with wine, sometimes I even add it to the food.’ Gourmets love food and fine wine quaffed, ideally without restriction, at every available social opportunity.
• Experiment and expand your search for a deliciously exotic non-alcoholic alternative you really like — check out the huge array of choice with an online shop. Stock your kitchen cupboards with exciting options you can share with friends.
• Enjoy a little fine wine, but slow the pace. Put your glass down between sips to slow your consumption.
• Stop and think for a moment — if you struggle with the idea of socialising when sober, could it be that perhaps you’re not quite as extrovert as you’d always thought? If you have grown accustomed to using alcohol as a social crutch to drown emotions and calm anxieties it can be tricky to contemplate group activities without it. Cutting back might show you the pleasures to be had in solitude or smaller, sober gatherings.
• Bring out the small 125ml wine glasses that might be languishing at the back of your kitchen cupboard and start routinely using them. Research has shown that when judging the size of a glass we tend to focus on the height of the glass rather than the width and will typically pour 12 per cent less wine into a taller glasses than a wide one.98 99 And looking down at a glass makes it seem more full than when holding it, so your top-up will typically be 12 per cent smaller.
The Gourmet’s tailored exercise prescription
For the Gourmet to be active it is very important that, as with food, exercise is a joy, not anything that could be regarded as a punishment. This can be tricky if the only exercise you’re used to is meandering around the local farmers’ market, but it might explain why you find yourself allergic to the gritty tedium of jogging or long-distance cycling which other Shrinkology types might regard as deliciously challenging.
Try channelling your energies into learning a new sporting skill. Investigate tennis or swimming lessons. Learning the ropes and pushing your own limits will keep you entertained. As a Gourmet it’s good to feel proud of your body (pride at what it can do as much as pride in how it looks) and proud of your accomplishments outside of the kitchen.
Consider channelling your love of luxury into joining a really smart gym. If the expense seems prohibitive, try adding up how much you spend on wine in a typical month. Cut back, and that gym membership might start to look like good value. It certainly becomes more cost-effective if you absolutely commit to going every other day. And if you’re going to do it, do it properly (as only the Gourmet can): use the sauna, the pool, and book beauty treatments too, to make yourself feel pampered and special.
A personal trainer is a very Gourmet thing (it’s all part of having and being the best of the best), and you might consider the expense worthwhile initially if you need the incentive to really get started. Halve the cost (and boost the social interaction) by sharing with a friend.
Transfer that Gourmet sense of style to researching and choosing the best possible trainers and sexy new sports kit. If you’re serious about increasing your activity levels – and enjoying yourself in the process – it is definitely worth ditching the ‘sloth cloth’ (that baggy old T-shirt you wear to polish the car) and investing in some fabulous new fitness gear that makes you feel great while you’re being active.
TRY VINYASA YOGA (YOGA FLOW, DYNAMIC YOGA)
Probably the most widely practised yoga, yoga flow (or dynamic yoga) incorporates a wide range of postures that keep you moving continuously and smoothly. Teachers lead classes that flow from one pose to the next without stopping to talk about the finer points of each pose. Students come away with a good workout as well as a yoga experience.
This kind of yoga might suit a Gourmet best because there’s so much room for progression and visible growth (and one day you might be able to impress your friends with a headstand or back bend).
Teachers come up with their own unique sequences, so no two classes will be exactly the same. You’ll have the chance to play around with balance postures, inversions, and balances, depending on the level of the class – and everything is suitable for all body types.
It’s great if you’re easily bored, and it’s not too woo-woo and meditative. This practice is also good for those who are looking to feel energised and improve fitness levels.
Reward yourself – working towards an end goal with a desired reward can be a great form of motivation for Gourmets. So create your own loyalty system and give yourself a point for every session at the gym. After ten points you can reward yourself with something fantastic (that new bag you have had your eye on, or tickets to an amazing concert).
Studies have shown that colours can greatly affect mood, with green being the most calming and yellow being the ‘happiest’ of colours, but when it comes to gym kit, think orange – it is proven to be the most motivational colour of them all, building energy, motivation and enthusiasm.100
Gourmet in a nutshell
Your outgoing and exuberant personality forms a cornerstone of your identity, so the thought of making changes to your socialising and eating behaviours may – at first – feel rather objectionable to you. That’s why it’s important to boost your other interests and passions to take the focus off any diet plan and to prevent the weight loss process feeling too restrictive or tedious. By taking small steps and making simple behavioural changes, you’ll be able to find a little more balance with regards to food and drink. It doesn’t mean you’re going to have to be boring – instead think of Shrinkology as a wonderful opportunity to tease out aspects of your personality that might have been hidden beneath the cloak of all that food consumption over the years. This could be the start of a great new adventure for you.
If you do one thing ...
Before you eat any meal, ask yourself whether the food you are about to put in your mouth is both delicious and healthy – these aren’t mutually exclusive concepts, especially with your sophisticated palate. The more you can reinforce this message, the better!
